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A familiar looking blonde fellow with a haggard expression and sallow complexion stalks in from the public entrance and starts down the rows of desks, hands jammed in his trench coat pockets. It's an uncommon enough sight that someone moves to stop Constantine, who produces a folding wallet and flashes some kind of identification at the officer, who nods and apologizes.

With no ado whatsoever, Constantine walks up to Paul and Sara's desks, grabs an empty chair, and drags it across the floor so he can face them both, utterly disregarding personal property and occupation of the aisle. He fishes in his pocket for a cigarette and lights up, taking a couple of drags, then tilts back in the chair and crosses an ankle over his knee.

"Halloa," he says with a friendly, dead-eyed smile. "How goes the battle?" he inquires. "Anything gone bump in the dark recently for the local bobbies?"

The EI offices in the bowels of 1PP have seen stranger things, especially from Paul and Sara. The other cops just detour around the visitor though not without curious glances. Trench coat? How stereotypical. Paul glances up from his monitor then quirks a brow. "Almost forgot I had your magical homing device. There a reason you didn't just call? And when is there ever not something? How are you with vultures?"

Sara has a stack of files on her desk, and her head in one hand. "Honestly, Paul. One of these days, I'm just going to tell them that stray dogs do not require our attention," she mutters, tossing one file into another stack and taking a deep breath. "Sometimes, I miss a good, old-fashioned gang shoot-" And then there's a Constantine, and she looks up, quirking a brow. "Hello…" she says slowly. "Nice to see you again. And c'mon, Paul, the vulture thing is-" She grimaces, pushing a hand through her hair. She's still uneasy about that whole thing.

"Depends, are we referring to avians or other carrion eaters?" Constantine inquires. He runs the thumb of his smoking hand along his stubbled jawline, eyes flicking in contemplation. "Gonna need a bit more to go on, mate," he concludes, looking back at Paul and taking another drag from his cigarette, exhaling up over his left shoulder.

"But they could be werewolves." Paul points out, sounding as if he's completely serious. "The vulture thing is what?" he asks Sara. "Still open? We have no idea where those two disappeared to. I'm talking supernatural, Constantine. Some god of someone's who's either warning us or… well, not. And you can't smoke in here."

"Balance. Or destruction. It's kind of hard to separate the two." Says the Bearer of the Balance, scrubbing a hand over her face. Sara falls back in her chair, folding her hands over her stomach as she looks to the other two. "It's what was part of the whole Hollows thing, before. With the kids. And the fires. Hard to tell what was it and what was Etrigan, but a couple of the henchmen we saw before have been out agitating again, so apparently it isn't over."

"No, you mean you don't /want/ me to smoke in here," Constantine says, with a wag of the finger and an insouciant grin at Paul. When Sara mentions Etrigan, though, all the light goes out of his face, and dead serious, he leans forward, listening intently to both of them speak. "Etrigan," he spits. "Blighter ought to be tossed into a pit and locked away. He's a walking nuclear weapon, and you can quote me on that," Constantine says with an emphatic gesture.

"All right, so you've got some demiurge or demigod or something claiming to be such, rampaging around the city and agitating the situation. Did it give you a title? What exactly did it say?" He fishes in one pocket for an improbably large book, frowns at the spine, and puts it back, then from the same pocket produces an even /larger/ book, flipping it open and scanning the appendix in the back. "Let's see… balance… destruction… wow, quite a bit of overlap here," he says around his cigarette, frowning at the pages. "Could be anyone from an aspect of Shiva to some demon with a superiority complex."

"No, I mean it's illegal for you to smoke in here." Paul corrects. "And any minute now, the Captain is going to storm out of his office and fix that." Glancing over his shoulder, he sees the door is closed which might give him some extra time. "I agree completely. And he is tossed into a pit and locked away. It's called Hell. Well, mostly locked away." As for what it said, he lets Sara handle that part.

"That's pretty much what I've come up with, thank you," Sara sighs to Constantine's answer. "But it's somewhat reassuring that I'm not missing something glaringly obvious. Personally, I don't think wholesale destruction is really the way to go, as far as restoring balance goes, but I seem to be a little lonely in that side of things." She pauses, eying the man for a moment. "But you came here, so I'm guessing you've got some news of your own."

"I'm the world's only consulting supernatural investigator," Constantine points out dryly, "so arresting me won't do much for your investigations, will it? And when I say Etrigan, I mean the meat suit he's walking around in. A living, breathing, open portal? I'd banish him myself if I had a lick of sense about tangling with the demon wearing him."

Constantine burns the cigarette out, pinches off the tip and tuck it into a breast pocket. Then a flask comes out. He takes a hit off of it and doesn't offer any to Paul or Sara. "Do you remember that thing we killed?" Constantine asks Sara. "It wasn't a demon. It was an Old One. Slumbering things, from beyond space, beyond /time/. Those little spells the kids were tossing around weren't just casual summonings, they were ripping tiny tears in the fabric of reality- into the void between the universes," he explains, gesturing vaguely with his hands. "It's complicated. But it's bad news, missy," he tells Sara. "I'm seeing more and more of it- little summons, little portals, sometimes some awful big ones. Hell I can handle, and Heaven wants nothing to do with us except to turn us into toy soldiers. This… Void, though. All it wants is the corruption of all things," he says, his tone grim. "And you two ought to know that someone's out there stirring the cauldron, and if I don't find a way to stop them, and soon, we'll have Elder Gods and beings with non-Euclidean geometry gallivanting across creation."

"Actually, you're not the only one." Paul corrects. "There's actually a demon working for the government as a supernatural investigator. You're prettier though." Then he turns to Sara and frowns. "You killed an Old One without me?" After a moment, he beams at her. "Thank you." Reaching out, he saves the work on his computer and then leans back to rub his eyes. "So more Older Gods are waiting to be freed and you're worried you can't handle it by yourself? Congratulations, now you've made us worried too." He glances at Sara a moment before looking back to Constantine. "Can I suggest that all your wizardly types actually get together and compare notes? And yes, that includes Jason since he doesn't want to see our world destroyed any more than you do."

"Was it? That would explain why it was such a pain in the ass," Sara grimaces at Constantine's explanation. "To be fair, I don't usually examine the species before I get with the banishing, or destroying, or whatever I can manage at the time." She smirks at Paul's comment, shaking her head. "It was before you leveled up, anyhow. He's got a point, though. I know there's a lot of secrecy in certain circles, but this kind of affects all of us."

"Ah, but I'm a /consulting/ investigator," Constantine corrects Paul with a sly grin. "Our big red friend is just a plain investigator, by which I mean he stumbles into the ugliest things on creation, smashes them apart, and leaves someone else to pick up the pieces."

"I could pass on a message," Constantine says cautiously, "but it's not as if we've one another on speed dial. And some of us are just as wrapped up in personal projects- ritual spells to repair the rift damage, keeping Hell's minions from running amok- which, you know, six of one, half dozen of another, as far as a dead man's concerned," Constantine shrugs. "Look, the meat suit's not a bad bloke," Constantine admits grudgingly. "But he's a disaster waiting to happen. If Jason loses control of Etrigan, we'll have a fight on our hands that would knock Manhattan down like a bunch of children's blocks."

Constantine listens to Sara, then nods grudging agreement. "Anyway, the long and short of it is that I'm working things from my end, but I can't cover New York if more of these … void creatures show," he explains. "I'm busy. So you'll have to pick up the pace a bit with that little rapier of yours."

"You don't need to tell us about what happens if Jason loses it." Paul notes dryly. He got a front row seat in Hell because of it. "As for the rest of you… Sara can get hold of Jason. I can get hold of Illyana and Hellboy." Which explains the flowering plant on his desk: Baldr's Breath. The white flowers turn red around Loki or his magic. "I'm sure they can each get hold of others in turn. Then we can all sit down over donuts and coffee and chat about how to save humanity from Elder Gods. YES ELDER GODS." he repeats more loudly for the sake of those eavesdropping who smirk and go back to work.

"Really? I get Jason? Doesn't he owe you?" Sara complains out of habit, really, leaning back in her chair again. "Fenris. Should call him, too. Though we should probably leave Loki out of it, in the interest of not making things more complicated for ourselves. Who else should we invite to the tea party?" she asks, arching a brow as she looks between the others. Because at a certain point, you just have to embrace the ridiculousness.

Constantine groans and covers his face, drawing the skin down around his eyes as his palms pull at his pale skin. "I could call… well, I could make a call on … the real expert," Constantine finally admits. "He's the, how do you Americans say, the 'big cheese'," he quips. "Normally something that threatens just a city wouldn't even get his attention, but something on this order of magnitude. Blimey, though I do hate visiting him," he complains. "He always looks like he knows about half again what you'd like him to."

Paul hmmms? promptingly. "Yes? Who would that be? Because the more I think about this, the more I think it's sorely needed. The NYPD is out of their league. And as much as I've been trying to keep SHIELD in the loop, they're obviously out of their league too. And since you all don't talk to each other…" He looks to Sara. "That's our role, I guess. Organizer and instigator. We'll start tomorrow."

"Your description currently covers anyone in the magical community," Sara points out to Constantine in a dry tone, finger tapping on the edge of the desk. "SHIELD isn't set up to deal with this sort of thing. Most of the world isn't…people don't like to think that some day it could all end because some immensely powerful god had a bout of sleep apnea. People have to be clued in, and even then, there's a lot to balance out."

"Right," Constantine says, rising to his feet. A cigarette flickers into his fingers and he lights up. "I'm off, then. Suppose I'll make a social call," he grumbles, looking extremely put off by the notion. "Cheerio. Be safe, try not to get killed or maimed or transmutated," Constantine offers, with a lazy wave of his hand. He walks down the row of desks, hands in his pockets, then walks into the janitor's closet, which for some reason is filled with the warm tones of candlelight. Then he shuts the door behind him with a *click*.

Paul watches Constantine leave and once the door closes behind him says "I wonder if he could teach us that trick. Beats city traffic."